Sports boards are widely used by today's active outdoor athletes and sports enthusiasts. Sports boards include surfboards, wakeboards, wakeboards, water skis and snow skis, for example. When sports boards are not in use, storage is generally a problem due to their relatively large sizes, particularly for surfboards.
With respect to surfboards, for example, it is common for a surfboard to be stored in an upright standing position along a wall or laying flat on the floor. For either one of these storage approaches, the surfboard is susceptible to being knocked to the ground or being bumped into by other objects.
This problem is compounded when a surfer typically owns multiple boards to accommodate different wave conditions. Surfboards have evolved from one size fits all to now being tailored to match the intricacies of a board to the intricacies of the waves. This can be done by selecting design variations in the length, thickness, template, fins, rocker curves and bottom contours (i.e., flat or concave) of the surfboard.
The construction of a typical surfboard is that of fiberglass laminated to foam. While a surfboard is strong and resilient to blunt distributed forces subjected to in normal use, the surfboard is very susceptible to damage by sharp focused blows as would be incurred by being hit or falling to the ground. As most surfboards are about 6 feet in length or longer and roughly two feet wide, storage of multiple fragile objects of this size becomes intrusive to a living or work space.
One approach for storing surfboards is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,116 to Mojica. The '116 patent discloses a rack that holds the boards in a vertical orientation. The rack has a main rack section that is serpentine in shape. The curves in the rack establish storage bays. Each storage bay has an arcuate central wall and outwardly diverging sides for holding a surfboard in place. Brackets are attached to the free ends of the rack to permit mounting the rack on a wall. If desired, one or more curved extension pieces can be connected to the free ends of the rack to permit storing additional surfboards.
Another approach for storing surfboards is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,079 to Roberts. The '079 patent discloses spaced apart rack units to be attached to a substantially vertical surface so that the surfboards are held in a horizontal orientation. Each rack unit includes a base from which protrudes at least one strut member, and a strut retaining portion attached to the base, and from which each strut member protrudes. Each pair of spaced apart strut members are canted upwardly from 4 to 20 degrees above horizontal to hold a surfboard in place.
As an alternative to storing surfboards along a wall, an overhead storage rack is disclosed in U.S. Published Patent No. 2003/0164347 to Bouvier, Jr. The overhead storage rack includes multiple pairs of elongated rigid rollers spaced apart and supported by flexible webbing hung from rafters or a ceiling. The webbing may be adjustable in length. The rollers have a rubberized coating to assist with loading, unloading and storing of surfboards or other long objects.
A common design shared among the above racks is the use of a fixed or stationary support mechanism to hold multiple surfboards. This type of design tends to be less than ideal when taking into consideration space constraints where the racks may be mounted. Consequently, there is a need for a sports board rack that reduces the amount of space needed for storing surfboards.